Powwow held to heal, inform

By Dan DuChene
Sep. 20, 2009    ·    4:54 a.m.

Those who missed a unique experience in Ypsilanti Saturday can head down for a powwow in Riverside Park today and help a new local charity.

The Heritage of Healing Project, a new Ypsilanti non-profit organization dedicated to cancer awareness and wellness education for Native Americans, kicked off a two-day event of traditional Native American singing, dancing and music.

The event will continue today, starting with an awareness walk in the park at 11 a.m. The powwow festivities will start up again at 1 p.m. and last until 5 p.m.

Called the Summer Gathering, the event is the first organized by the organization since it was formed this summer by Ypsilanti resident Shoshana Phillips, of the Omaha nation.

Phillips said of the reasons she formed the non-profit was a 2007 study that found the only demographic in the past 20 years to have increases cancer incidents and mortality rates in the United States. She said the main purpose of the organization is to inform people of the health benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.

She said Heritage of Healing will also try to provide a means for children living with cancer to maintain normalcy, such as seeing a movie or museum and having warm coats and boots.

“Little stuff like that,” Phillips said.

Phillips’ inspiring journey to Ypsilanti speaks volumes of her ability to launch this project with her family this summer. She said her and her family lived in Washington DC until 2001. She said she had been experiencing health problems and was eventually let go from her job with the city due to the toll the problems were taking on her work.

Homeless, her husband and two children, now 10 and 12 years old, started living out of their car. She said they would move from powwow to powwow across the country.

“It’s a spiritual way for us,” Phillips said.

She said the gatherings provided sustenance and healing through their culture and the kindness of others. The family eventually settled in the southwest, where Phillips began seeing a doctor through Medicare. Constantly sore and tired, the doctors diagnosed her with fibromyalgia.

“Basically, they said, ‘we don’t know what’s really wrong with you, but we’re going to call it fibromyalgia,’ ” she said.

Phillips lived with her family in the southwest until 2006, when she said she caught wind of research the University of Michigan was performing into her diagnosed disease. She said her family moved to the area to take part in the study.

Blood was drawn during the screening for the study, which lead to a startling call from U-M doctors. They told her she did not have fibromyalgia and should visit a hospital right away. Four days later she was told doctors had found cancer in her bone marrow.

In advanced stage, Phillips said doctors told her she had been living with the cancer undiagnosed for five years. She said the told her she would only live another six months untreated.

After three years, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, Phillips said she feels “pretty good.”

After moving to the area, Phillips and her family got in contact with local non-profit SOS Community Services. She said the group put her family up in a shelter, until they were able to secure low-income housing on their own.

During her family’s time living in their car, Phillips said her daughter had a dream. She said she saw a gathering of people “worse off” than her own family, and were being healed during a powwow.

“This is a realization of that dream she had,” Phillips said.

After this weekend’s event, Phillips said her organization will be working on a dance in the winter to start collecting winter garments for the children she wants to help. She said the Native Americans will be located in several different urban locations, as well as on reservations.

Traditionally, when a powwow is held somewhere it is held for at least the next four years in the same location annually, Phillips said. So, Ypsilanti residents can look forward to participating next year if they can’t make it down today.

For more information, e-mail Heritage of Healing at heritageofhealing@yahoo.com.

To see video for this story, click here